


Take Me Instead

by BrokenKestral



Series: Whumptober2020 [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Love, Traitor, Ultimate Sacrifice, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26912248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenKestral/pseuds/BrokenKestral
Summary: "Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life."~Tolkien
Series: Whumptober2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970584
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Take Me Instead

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: AUish
> 
> (I do like Lewis’ version better, but this, I think, needed to be written…maybe.) The dialogue at the beginning is taken from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

**Whumptober Prompt 9: For the Greater Good**

**“Take Me Instead” / Ritual Sacrifice**

“You have a traitor there, Aslan.”

Edmund struggled. Once before, his gaze, his heart he’d filled with Aslan. Her words hadn’t mattered then. Why did they matter now? Her cold, cruel face didn’t even turn to him as she claimed him. If he had been nothing, she would care nothing for him, but Aslan had made him something, and he —

He had made himself  _ hers _ by his choices. 

“Well, his offence was not against you.” Oh, that voice. It had been one of the hardest of lessons, meeting a Love such as this and knowing himself unworthy of it. Aslan’s love flowed fuller than the emptiness of the Witch. 

Yet Edmund had made his choices. Oh, what he had chosen! He cried, the golden face blurring. What he had chosen was terrible; what he had lost, that hurt worse.

Aslan could not pardon a traitor and remain Himself. Justice had demands and love could not stay them. Edmund heard the claims of the Witch, heard her appointment. He walked towards the Witch. Her face lit up, the red lips curving, the eyes of hatred gleaming in the sunlight. “Bind him!” she cried in joy, and her Dwarf rushed forward.

“Edmund!” he heard behind him, and his body shuddered at the pain in his siblings’ voices. By his choices he lost them, and forced them to lose him. “Edmund!”

The Dwarf had no rope, but lashed his whip around Edmund’s body, digging it into his arms, his legs. The Dwarf laughed and pushed Edmund back with one hard shove, and the boy fell, legs held immobile, and his calves hit stone, his back and head hitting a moment later. 

“Be still,” the Lion growled, and Edmund froze. But it had not been directed at him, nor, Edmund thought with a hurting heart, at the Dwarf and Witch. It had been to the Narnians, bound by the Lion’s word. The Dwarf picked up Edmund’s legs, grunting. He threw them on the table, laying the bound boy straight.

Edmund felt his heart pounding, the lash wrapped tight, and he looked up at the sky. Narnia’s blue sky. He tried to draw it in, to fill his heart with that peace. But what does a traitor know of peace? 

There was no peace apart from Aslan. And it was the Witch who claimed him.

He heard the sound he’d heard before, of the Witch shedding her outer mantle, of her drawing her knife. She had no need to sharpen it, and stalked to the table, looking down at him in delight. She reached one long white arm to his head, grasping his hair, and drew his head back with terrible strength. She drew her other arm back.

“Wait.” The Lion had come forward, and Edmund felt his heart thud hard enough to give life to stone, for he knew what came next. He knew the strength of the Lion’s love for him. “Take Me instead. Satisfy justice with another life, and let his be spared.” 

The hand grasping Edmund’s hair released him, the Witch turning to consider the Lion. Edmund rolled his head, looking towards Aslan.  _ No, _ he pleaded,  _ no, please, Aslan _ —

“Be still,” came the words again, more gently, but still a command to constrain the stars and the earth, and enough to silence the traitor who knew his own choices never came right. 

“You would give your life for this traitor?” The Witch’s words rang high and shrill. Edmund begged the sun to hide its light, for everyone to stop listening. No one should hear the travesty being bargained. 

“I would. He is Mine.”

“The Great Cat for a traitor!” Edmund could hear the triumph in her voice, and it chilled him more than her wand ever could. “Get up, boy! There’s another use for the Table now. Quick, get him up!” 

The Dwarf grabbed the end of the whip and pulled, and Edmund rolled off the table, the whip unwinding as he fell. He got to his feet shakily, looking at Aslan. And so he saw as the whip curled around again, cutting into Aslan’s front leg, into His shoulder, the red blood running down. Edmund knew that sting, that cut, and it burned into him that Aslan felt that, for  _ him _ . He reached his hand out to touch the Lion’s face, made bold by the love ready to die for him. 

“To the table!” The Witch’s command cut off his reach, but Aslan looked at him, the promise of rightness in His eyes, and then the Lion turned to the table, limping on one bleeding leg, and laid Himself and His life down on it. The Witch drew near, shoving Edmund aside, and again Edmund stumbled, falling to his knees in the grass, eyes fixed on Aslan. A hand laid itself on his shoulder, then another, tiny hand, brother and sister, but none could look away from the God ready to die, and Edmund wept. 

“Today is your death, and tomorrow, theirs,” Edmund heard the cold voice whisper in promise, before the knife was raised and he covered his face. 

* * *

And so the Lion died for the traitor. The Witch left for her army, the Four and the Narnians raised a mound of stones over the Table and left it to go fight her, leaving the two Queens to watch over His tomb. And great was their joy the next morning when they discovered that Love is greater than death, and sacrifice greater than cruelty. The Lion woke the rest of the dead, giving life to all, and together those given Life defeated those dealing out death. 

* * *

Or so Edmund heard, as his mind rose from dreaming to wakefulness. But he woke shaking. Aslan had triumphed—in the dream as in life—but on this, the anniversary of the battle of the Witch’s death, Edmund’s mind and heart remembered.

Remembered, how grace and love gave greater gifts than hearts and minds could fathom. He remembered how traitors were given life, were loved, were  _ claimed _ . How Aslan rose and lived and triumphed. 

_ Mine _ , roared the Lion. 

_ Mine _ by the right of Creator and God,

_ Mine  _ says the Word upholding the world.

_ Mine  _ even though the bright soul grew flawed,

_ Mine _ even though the straight ways grew furled.

_ Mine _ , you are mine, in your world or not,

_ Mine _ when the Witch speaks out your name,

_ Mine  _ as you fear the pathway you wrought,

_ Mine,  _ though you hear the Witch’s true claim.

_ Mine,  _ for I paid the highest of costs,

_ Mine, _ for my love you cannot exhaust,

_ Mine _ , as I come for those who are lost,

_ Mine _ now I claim you, by Table and Cross.

_ Mine _ , do you hear me, child so dear?

_ Mine,  _ says the dagger, thrust deep with jeers.

_ Mine _ , says the blood, the thorn, and the spear.

Then  _ Mine _ says the dawn, flooding the sphere.


End file.
